DailyTech takes a look at Intel and AMD's claims when it comes to server processor performance, pricing.

With the recent release of Intel's Nehalem-based
Xeon processors last month
and AMD's Shanghai-based Opteron
processor
in November 2008, a war of words has precipitated between Intel and
AMD.
Intel claimed that it maintained the greatest performance-per-dollar
and that
its slowest Nehalem was faster than
the fastest Opteron, while AMD refutes this and claimed that it provides
a
better value product. AMD also claims to have the most energy
efficient
chip by advertising the world's most efficient and first "40-watt"
quad-core CPU while Intel claims that its CPUs are the most energy
efficient.

The
result of this public bickering
is that it is difficult for chip customers to figure out who to
believe.
To settle this dispute, we will analyze each of these claims and provide
hard
data to validate or debunk each of these claims.

Reality:
No, yes, and not anymore.
If we include the one dual-core Nehalem
variant, the answer is no because a lower clock speed dual-core Intel Nehalem
isn't going to beat the highest
clocked quad-core AMD Shanghai.
If Intel was only talking about all of the other quad-core Nehalem
models then yes, even the slowest
2 GHz Nehalem XEON model E5504 will
soundly
beat the fastest 2.7 GHz AMD Shanghai
Opteron model 2384. But this has changed recently as AMD has
just recently
released a 3.1 GHz model 2393SE Opteron which would likely be faster
than the
slowest Nehalem quad-core processor
but still lag far behind most Nehalem
model numbers.

Table
1a and 1b below shows the
latest and best performance scores published at SPEC.org as of
4/27/2009.
SPECint is a general purpose benchmark covering a lot of mainstream
applications while SPECfp represents a cross section of scientific and
engineering applications. SPECweb reflects web server
performance.
For comparison sakes, we'll also include the fastest Nehalem
Xeon 2.93 GHz X5570 which on average is nearly twice as
fast as the Opteron 2384. Since official public benchmarks
aren't
available at the time of this writing, table 1 below will not include
model
2393SE performance numbers. However, the performance gain of
the Opteron
2393SE will likely be no more than 15% faster than an Opteron 2384
which may be
enough to put it past the Intel E5504.

The
SPECfp data is especially
noteworthy because this was traditionally an AMD stronghold before the
arrival
of Intel's Nehalem processor with
QuickPath memory architecture. SPECfp along with everything
else is now
clearly dominated by Intel Nehalem.

SPECweb
was another strong suit for
AMD before the arrival of Intel Nehalem.
Now a dual-socket Nehalem based
Xeon
server can even outpace a four-socket Shanghai
based Opteron server.

Claim
#2:AMD
launched the world's first
quad-core processor within a 40-watt thermal envelope and has the most
energy
efficient processors.

Reality:
FalseAMD
did not release a quad-core
processor within the 40-watt thermal envelope and they do not have the
most
energy efficient chip. While AMD never officially claimed
that their
newest Opteron 2377HE chip runs inside a 40-watt thermal envelope, this
is the
impression they have successfully marketed to the public. AMD
now refuses
to disclose the actual Thermal Design Power (TDP) of their latest CPUs
to the
media and has tried to state that AMD's Average CPU Power (ACP) metric
is
comparable to Intel's TDP metric. As a result, every news
story, every
product label, and every server vendor only show ACP numbers and not
the actual
thermal ceiling of the processors while Intel continues to use the TDP
metric
which more accurately reflects peak power consumption.

AMD
also claims that Intel's
processors have a higher thermal ceiling which makes them less suitable
for
dense data center deployments, but even this claim is false for most Nehalem
models. The most
comprehensive and standardized server power efficiency metric to date
is SPECpower_ssj2008
and it shows a wide range of power consumption metrics across a variety
of load
levels. Table 2 below will show a comparison of the most
efficient AMD Shanghai based
servers against the most
efficient Intel Nehalem based
servers. SPECpower_ssj2008 is so interesting because it not
only tells us
the actual measured idle and peak power consumption under a server side
java
load, but it also tells us the server's server side java
performance. The
"score" is determined by an average measurement of performance per
watt across all the workloads. SPECpower scores for the 2.0
GHz E5504
were not available, so the closest model number with the most similar
clock
speed and power consumption characteristics were used in table 2.

As
we can see from the official
SPECpower_ssj2008 results above, AMD's "High Efficiency" (HE)
products actually consume substantially more power than Intel's low
power
products despite the fact that AMD advertises the lowest power
consumption. The idle power consumption gap is even larger
which is
significant since most servers spend most of their time low utilization
states. It's clear that the million plus transistors Intel
devoted to
power management on the Nehalem
chip
is paying off.

While
these measured peak power
numbers don't reflect the maximum power that each system can draw under
any
workload, it does represent the peak power consumption under this
particular
type of workload which is generally not as intensive as a High
Performance
Computing (HPC) workload used in scientific and engineering
applications.
What these numbers do confirm is that AMD's claim that their ACP metric
is most
similar to Intel's TDP metric is clearly false and that AMD's TDP
ratings for
these processors are far more comparable to Intel's TDP.

It's
also noteworthy that this
benchmark also shows lower clocked Intel processors performing more
server side
java operations per second (SSJ_OPS) than the higher clocked AMD
processors
which further reinforces the data from Table 1.

Claim
#3: An
equivalent Intel Nehalem
server costs almost twice as much as an equivalent AMD Opteron Server.

Reality:
This claim is false because there are no equivalent (in
performance or power consumption) AMD Opterons compared to Intel Nehalem
servers. While AMD
based
servers are the cheapest, a low end Nehalem
server can deliver more performance at a lower price. Table 3
below shows
server prices from HP with the base configuration plus second processor.

It
appears that AMD is already
heavily adjusting their processor prices to the major server makers
rather than
the unrealistic list prices that were originally set before the arrival
of
Intel Nehalem. In fact if
we
only went by the official processor list prices, we would expect the
AMD
servers to cost much more than they do in table 3. It is
normal to see a
lag in price adjustment immediately after a new chip lunch when
customers
haven't all caught on to the new products yet and when inventory is
still
working its way into the channel. However, we should expect
more AMD
price cuts to come soon because there's no reason that a server based
on an
Opteron 2384 should fetch more money than a server based on Intel Nehalem
server given the benchmark
results.

Implications
on the high end multi
processor server market

The
implications of Intel Nehalem on
the server market for the
near term are profound. It not only threatens AMD in the
two-socket
market, but it threatens AMD's four-socket market and even begins to
encroach
on Intel's four-socket Dunnington
servers. When you can buy a two-socket Intel Nehalem
server at a fraction of the price and exceed the
performance of four-socket AMD servers and come close to Intel Dunnington,
it takes the thunder out of
four-socket servers. Table 4a and 4b shows two-socket Intel Nehalem
servers beating Opteron
four-socket servers in SAP and Virtualization performance.

These
results are stunning because
at no time in the last 5 years has the performance gap between Intel
and AMD
been so large. This situation won't change until AMD launches
6-core Istanbul Opteron processors
which are
expected by June 2009 and Intel launches its 8-core Nehalem-EX
processor for
multi-socket severs expected by the end of Q4 2009. AMD
6-core Istanbul will narrow their
performance
deficit not enough to close it against Intel current Nehalem-EP
4-core processors. However, Intel's Nehalem-EX
8-core processor is expected
to widen Intel's performance lead by a significant margin by the end of
this
year. But because Nehalem-EX
won't be seen in most mainstream two-socket servers, Istanbul
will allow AMD to raise their average selling price to a
healthier level.

Decision
time

It
appears that the server market
between Intel and AMD is now mirroring the desktop chip wars.
IT
customers have a choice of buying low-cost value servers based on AMD Shanghai
processors or they can buy
premium priced Intel-based servers for better performance and energy
efficiency. However, the value hunter should wait a few more
weeks when Shanghai servers settle
down to post-Nehalem prices.

* All results and prices as of
4/27/2009

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quote: Pricing on the other hand will be a completely different matter. I'm sure AMD will get on to pricing their chips very competitively, as they have been doing in the general consumer market.

Pricing can only get you so far. At some point performance becomes the deciding factor. I mean yeah I can buy Pentium 3's for $4 each and I could easily get more raw processing power down that route (theoretically anyway) for the same money that I paid for my core 2 quad but in practice the single thread performance delta is just too great to even make the Pentium 3 solution a viable option.

I wonder how long it will be before AMD runs into a similar issue with their product line? The current Phenom II stuff (not sure what the codename for the Opteron variant is) even with the price cuts is just barely competitive with the core 2 line, Nehalem is just getting started... If you think about it AMD is 2 generations behind. At some point they are simply going to be offering parts that are too slow to be useful and their appeal even when they are substantially cheaper will start to taper off.

The Atom is the current hot item right now, and that is anything but powerful. Only some server functions need exceptionally fast CPUs.If AMD is smart they will target their products toward specific usage. When I built a Home Server I grabbed a 4850e which featured low power, an excellent price, and a very low system price. I am sure that Intel will continue to do business with the spoiled teenagers and trust-fund babies, but since gaming has fled to the consoles the need and market for large numbers of high performance PCs is dwindling. And I say that as a PC gamer.Ultimately, AMDs failure to compete across all product lines will mean a slower pace for innovation and Intel holding back newer products so as not to canibalize their existing sales.

quote: The Atom is the current hot item right now, and that is anything but powerful.

We're talking about server CPU's here, so this is irrelevant.

quote: Only some server functions need exceptionally fast CPUs.

But they're all in need of energy efficient CPU's, and the Intels prove more so compared to their AMD counterparts, as well as the increased performance in comparison.

quote: I grabbed a 4850e which featured low power

If you have read the article properly, you will have read the part about these so-called "energy efficient" models, and that Intel equivalents are more energy efficient even with higher TDP's.

quote: Intel holding back newer products so as not to canibalize their existing sales.

If Intel didn't hold back, AMD would have disappeared a long time ago. Intel are already moving much too fast for AMD to keep up. This shows with their new line of Phenom II processors, which, don't get me wrong, are excellent processors, especially for the price, but lag in performance compared to a 2 year old QX9650.

Lag in performance? those PII's seem to be doing a bang up job againts intels 7,8, and 9x lines which is where we see the bulk of Intel's desktop sales. The i7 on the other hand hasnt quite hit the masses yet and likely won't until the i5 is introduced. Even then your still only looking at what?? 20% gains at best, so it's not like the performance increases we got out of the core2.

As to the whole server side of things, you can bet AMD will feel the pinch. Server sales are fairly lucrative and if they get shut out there that's going to hurt.

quote: Lag in performance? those PII's seem to be doing a bang up job againts intels 7,8, and 9x lines which is where we see the bulk of Intel's desktop sales.

I agree, but my whole point is that the Core 2 Quads are well into their second year of availability, and AMD have only just released something to compete with the higher end Core 2 Quads.

If you've read most reviews, you will see that even the latest Phenom II 955 3.2GHz is more comparable in performance to a Q9550 2.83GHz, and that when compared to a QX9650/Q9650 3.0GHz, QX9770 or perhaps even a QX6950 which is 2 years old, and which are all Core 2 Quad, it trails in almost every benchmark.

The entire point was that if Intel moved any quicker than what they are already doing, then who knows where AMD would stand today.

I think a far more important issue that is similar to what you bring up is that pricing can only get you so far when you are talking about chips that use more power per performance unit than Nehalem particularly if the idea was to buy more cheap opterons to equal the performance of a smaller number of more expensive Nehalems. Power is very imporant these days as electricity bills and cooling costs are high and companies want to be as green as possible.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize AMD was in such a bad position in regards to performance/watt. The only way I could see AMD attenuating the crushing onslaught of 2P/4P Nehalem was if they could win the power and efficiency argument, and it is clear that despite AMD's marketing, Nehalem is just an incredible performer in every metric.

Lastly, having seen all the Nehalem numbers for a while now, I can only imagine how insanely fast the 4P Nehalem 'Beckton' will be with quad-channel RAM and quad-channel quickpath.

In most games it matters VERY little if you are running Intel or AMD and the FPS load is all on the Video Card so why pay for something you do not need?

I've also been able to keep the very same motherboard for two years!

Starting with a single core AMD then moving to 2x core then Phenom I and now a Phenom II - all on the same motherboard!

I did not have to change my memory as the "myth" of DDR3 being better than DDR2 is just that... myth!

So while I agree that Intel "currently" makes the best chips... you do pay for them and when I buy or build a system I look at the best speed for your money.

While some people get some form of pleasure trying to show who has the largest (censored) by means of benchmarks... the "smart" people laugh all the way to the bank and take that money they saved by not buying a $300+ Intel CPU and using it toward a faster Video Card.

If money was no object then of course I would get an Intel but I have more important things to spend my hard earned dollars on instead of buying a CPU that never gets more then 50% use in the games I play.

quote: I've also been able to keep the very same motherboard for two years!

Starting with a single core AMD then moving to 2x core then Phenom I and now a Phenom II - all on the same motherboard!

I agree that AMD's upgrade solutions offer excellent compatability and value for those who already own an AM2+ motherboard. With that said though, two years ago I purchased a motherboard and processor (Core 2 Quad), and I'm still using that same motherboard and processor.

I haven't had to constantly upgrade because the performance has always been above par and above anything AMD have had to offer until very recently.

With your constant processor upgrading, ultimately you have paid more than I have, to get more-or-less the same performance as I've had for the past 2 years.

In that scenario, AMD no longer looks like the cheaper option, does it?

quote: While some people get some form of pleasure trying to show who has the largest (censored) by means of benchmarks

It might have escaped your fanboy brain, but benchmarkers only accomodate for a tiny proportion of the market. If only benchmarkers bought Intel processors then they would not be absolutely dominating the processor market, would they?

quote: While some people get some form of pleasure trying to show who has the largest (censored) by means of benchmarks... the "smart" people laugh all the way to the bank and take that money they saved by not buying a $300+ Intel CPU and using it toward a faster Video Card.

Ironically enough, it's the Intel users who are laughing at the AMD users. It's true that some may have paid $300+, but their need for constant upgrading is not necessary as the performance is enough to get the user through at least the next two years.The "smart" people buy a processor that will last them as long as possible without the need to upgrade. AMD obviously don't offer a viable solution to this, which shows due to the constant changing of their processor lineup.

Whilst it's true that some may have paid $300 for their processor, there are Core 2 Quad solutions which are much cheaper. Suffice to say, that they have got more than their moneys worth. I paid £160 for a Core 2 Quad Q6600 two years ago and never looked back, whilst in that same amount of time you've forked out for 3 processors. Ultimately, I'm the one laughing at you.

quote: and using it toward a faster Video Card

Yeah, because as usual people only buy a computer to play games.

quote: but I have more important things to spend my hard earned dollars on

Like what? Saving up for your next processor upgrade in 2 months time? Please....

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